


War is Hell (but, like, LITERALLY) (Award?)

by mercutiglo



Series: Jonny's Season Two "Ideas" [11]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Very brief), Brief Mention of a Mental Hospital, Fire, Flying Demons, Gen, Hell, I really kinda popped off on this one lmao, Like literally a battlefield transforms into hell because hell but like literally, Non-Graphic Violence, Oh also People are on Fire, Original Statement, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25117819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutiglo/pseuds/mercutiglo
Summary: An original statement fic where like. Ya know. War is Hell. But literally.(War/battlefield focused fic, please look at the tags for some content warnings)
Series: Jonny's Season Two "Ideas" [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1421500
Kudos: 5





	War is Hell (but, like, LITERALLY) (Award?)

The sprinklers were never a good thing to have start going off in the Archives, and it was exceptionally terrifying whenever the flames seemed to originate from artifact storage. One might think that after the issues with Jane Prentiss, they'd have plenty of fire extinguishers to help deal with an actual fire problem, but since they used so many of them on the worms, there was a surprising actual shortage of functioning fire extinguishers in the Archives since they hadn't all been replaced yet (and frequently went mysteriously missing, even though everything had seemed to return to relative normalcy.)

"Elias! We have a problem!" Jon heard a couple of the different people he worked with running around trying to find Elias (although he was sure Elias already knew what was happening if he hadn't set the fire himself) but he couldn't let that distract him from the statement he was in the midst of reading. 

"The guns shot off all over the place and while the battle was happening in the middle of winter, there was a strange sensation that began to spread throughout the troops, all of us looking at the others to see if they could feel it too. It honestly brought all the fighting to a complete halt for a few minutes as both sides were trying to figure it out. Everyone was silently but mutually in agreement that there was something quite warm about the battlefield, like they were all sitting next to the fires that surely only a few would manage to make it back to at the end of the day. The warmth was almost to the point of discomfort, but not yet, still growing. It wasn't half bad considering it had been snowing just two hours prior. A few of the soldiers began to shrug off their outermost layers, their coats that kept them from succumbing to the frozen wasteland of the battlefield. It was all good for a few minutes. Until we realized that the temperature was continuing to rise, that it wasn't going back down, that it was beginning to melt the snow around us at an uncomfortable rate, leaving us standing in puddles that quickly meant mud that we were beginning to sink into. The coats that had been set down on the ground were disappearing into the swampy mud. Panic started to rise from soldiers on both sides of the battle.

But it let loose when one soldier suddenly let out an ear-piercing scream. 

Those around the soldier quickly tried to figure out what it was that was causing his screaming, and they were soon joining him in chorus. Soon enough everyone on the field was looking up at the sky, where there were winged beasts flying through the air. At first it seemed like they were just abnormally large birds, but then as they started diving down closer to the soldiers it became clear to everyone that these were no birds. The bright, human like eyes, sharp teeth, hands and feet and tails all covered in blood red skin with horrifying screeches coming out of their horrid mouths, it became clear that these were instead the devils of Hell. Everyone on both sides of the field started to scatter but these flying devils were corralling us, keeping us from running and tearing those who slipped past their line to shreds. Even then, the heat kept rising."

"Jon, do you have any fire extinguishers left in here? Artifact storage is on fire and Tim and Martin haven't found any anywhere in the Archives. They're running to see if there are any left in the library." Sasha was hanging on his door frame, even though she very well knew that he hated when she did that because it tended to mess with the way the door hung, but Jon didn't feel now was the time to pick that particular fight. 

He scooted back from his desk to look in a few drawers, not finding anything currently useful in most of them, although he did fine the pen he could've sworn Tim had stolen last week. He'd have to apologize to Tim for blaming him. "I don't see an- Oh here's one." He pulled one out of a hidden drawer in his desk, sure that there was another one shoved in behind it but not entirely ready to give up all forms of protection, just in case any other friends of Jane's decided to stop by. 

Sasha quickly crossed his office to take the fire extinguisher from him. "Do you only have the one?" It was almost as though she had been reading his thoughts, but knew there was no logical way that she possibly could have been.

"Sorry, yeah, only the one. I thought Elias had ordered a restock of all the fire cabinets?"

"They're supposed to arrive tomorrow. So of course a fire would happen today, you know?" She smiled as she turned to leave his office. "Let me know if you can remember where any are, or if you'd like to, I dunno, help keep the Archives intact!" She finished her sentence while she was running down the hallway. He pulled out a piece of paper that was already filled with scribbled notes and added another one to the list  _ 'Hanging on door frame again, coupled with passive aggression, set a fire in artifact storage?' _ He slid it back in one of his top drawers and returned to the statement and tape recorder sitting on his desk, the tape still running. 

"Even then, the heat kept rising. The air was beginning to steal the moisture from our breaths, becoming incredibly dry. As we tried to look past the hovering Devils to see if there was anyone near the battle who might be able to get help, we began to notice the land changing. We had started the battle in a large field covered in snow, but the ground was quickly going from the mud to practically rock, and there were hills of dirt and rock beginning to come up all over the place. Another piercing scream rang out above the rest since it was a soldier right near where I was standing, and when I looked over, I saw that soldier burning where they were standing. There were fires popping up all over the field, consuming soldiers on both sides and causing the already treacherous land into something even more terrible with burning people all over. Between the flying Devils, the sudden rocky landscape, the heat, and then the fires popping up and torturing the rest of us with the screams of those afflicted by the flames... It was then that we all began to realize that something horrifying had happened and we were truly on the plains of Hell in that battlefield."

Gunshots sounded from Artifact Storage and Jon paused to try and see if he could tell what exactly was going on. He realized it must've logically been the heat of the fire causing any guns that might be in there to go off, but any gun in the Archives should have been emptied and locked away properly, so how would any of them actually be firing? There was a relationship between the statement he was reading and the events unfolding in Artifact Storage that made him uneasy. But there was something tugging at the back of his mind, compelling him to keep reading, even though he knew that he wanted to go and make sure things were okay. But even as he tried to get up, to walk away from the recording, he felt that he couldn't stand, couldn't move, and determined that at the very least the sooner he got to the end of the statement, the sooner he could turn off the damned tape recorder and make sure that the fire wasn't spreading to the rest of the Institute. 

"So obviously, how did I make it out? Surely I had to if I'm here writing this down. I readied my gun and took a shot at one of those horrifying Devils and managed to hit it right where a heart would theoretically have been. And it cried out in this horrifying infernal screeching noise as it fell to the ground like a meteor, crushing some of the men who either didn't notice the falling beast or at that point were too shocked and afraid to care. The other of the flying monstrosities mimicked that screech and seemed to be looking around for the little human that had killed one of their own, but I ran around in a panic to blend in with the rest of the frenzied crowd. Another soldier followed my lead, shooting another one out of the crowded skies. Suddenly everyone was pointing their guns not at each other but up at the skies, and the twisted bodies began falling out of the blackened yet clear night sky one by one, then in groups, until there was only one left and the shots were missing more than succeeding. While the whole group had noticed the problem before too many people were killed, the rocky ground was littered with bodies large and small, winged and human, shot and fallen upon. A small group of us were still standing, and this final flying Devil seemed angry that any of us had managed to escape the grasp of them and their fallen siblings, and was diving at anyone still standing, ripping anyone that met their claws into pieces. When one of us finally managed to land a shot in the creature, as it fell to the ground time seemed to slow. The fires that had eliminated some of our comrades suddenly dispersed, leaving only a pile of ash where they once stood, the ground transformed back to mud, then froze as it was then suddenly covered in snow again, the air rapidly dropping back to the winter temperatures that they were that morning when the two groups had met for battle, snow covering the bodies of both fallen soldiers and fallen Devils, the sky lightening to be the mid afternoon it was when the battle had begun, and as the final Devil disappeared into the snow, time seemed to return to normal, the battlefield seemingly untouched by the hours of horror that had just happened. Looking around, there were four other soldiers from our side, and five or six on the other side, and no one said anything as we grouped ourselves together and parted ways back to our own camps."

"From there it was fairly uneventful, although every field doctor had a round of questions for each of us once we started describing what had happened, and discharge came fairly quickly after that. Honorable, but there was always a question sitting in the back of my mind, wondering whether or not those in command had any real idea what it was that drove us off the battlefield and into different mental hospitals. We were all told we would be able to go back to our families, but it was clear that wasn't going to be happening any time soon. Fortunately, they didn't think it through enough to split us into different institutions, and were were able to lie our way out of the place."

More shouting emerged from outside of his office and Jon was hoping he was done, but found one more page left to go in the statement folder.

"Included with this statement is a medal that we were all awarded much later on in life. After the way everything had happened, we were all sure that something had happened, some kind of drugs must have gotten into the food or water, even though that didn't account for the missing troops, it was easier than believing that Hell had truly erupted that day. It was honestly the arrival of this award that made me realize I wanted to say something. The five of us on our side stayed in contact long after going our separate ways, although at times communication got a little thin. It's been at least twenty years since that horrifying day and the fact that we made it this long without any of the five of us biting it was a shocker. We all sent each other letters, asking to make sure everyone had gotten the weird looking medal. Just in case the medal ever gets separated from the rest of the story, it's a red and black ribbon with a very faint flame embossing, practically invisible unless you're looking for it. The actual medal part is this bronze creature, one of those flying Devils again, a perfect recreation of those we saw the last time we saw many of our friends and fellow soldiers. I was never an excellent artist, but I had done as good of a drawing of what we had seen as I could when I was a shocked and shaking mess in the field doc's tent just after watching hundreds of people die for reasons that weren't actually the war. As I said, it was pretty crude, but the fact that they saved that for 20 years and then managed to recreate it and send us a physical thing to remind of us what we all can see every time we try to fall asleep? You might be thinking well, at least now we could show someone else what the medal looked like, get them to understand what the problem was. Every time I touched that thing, it was as hot as the day we saw those beasts, caused burns all over my hands and fingers. Even if I had a wife I wouldn't be able to show it to her because it's too damn hot to touch. Getting it into the envelope I was worried it would burn through the paper but it didn't while I was still holding it, so it should hopefully make it through the mail system to you. After the medals arrived, two of the others suddenly stopped responding to any of our letters and I fear that that must mean something happened to them with those medals. So I don't know if the medal is going to help you all or not, but it sure as Hell isn't helping me. Statement ends."

As soon as he said those two words, like magic he felt like a weight was lifted off of him, suddenly able to stand from his desk, bursting out of his office towards Artifact Storage, where he was sure that the medal mentioned in the statement was the reason for the fire breaking out. As he arrived, he saw Sasha, Tim, Elias, and Martin all standing around looking at the horrifying twisted piece of medal matching the description he had just read. "Ah, Jon, nice of you to finally show up." The bite in Sasha's voice was clear, and he felt a twinge of guilt for not trying to figure out how the hell to get up earlier.

"Believe me, I would've left what I was doing a while ago, but I couldn't. I see you took care of things though?"

"Yeah, got it taken care of, it seems to be this weird medal though. A bit creepy, innit?" Tim crouched down to poke at it.

"Tim, don't poke it again!" Jon noticed that Martin was holding a first aid kit and Tim had bandages on his fingers already, presumably from poking it before. 

Tim ignored Martin's advice and poked it again, recoiling and pulling his hand into his chest, curling around it, protecting it. Martin threw an ice pack at him before walking away. 

"Jon, have you encountered any statements about this interesting piece?" Elias looked at Jon in a way that made him feel there was something he was missing in the situation, but couldn't quite figure out.

Jon held up the papers that were still in his hand. "It's actually the statement I was just reading. From some war, the battlefield turned into the plains of hell, lots of trauma, you know how war goes."

"Yes of course. Tim, put the ice back on your finger and get back to what you were doing. Jon, give Sasha a hand getting the medal in a fireproof case, and keep the paper statement with it please. I'd really rather not go back to hell right now." Elias turned to leave them to ponder both how to handle the overheated medal, and also what exactly he meant by saying 'back' to hell....

**Author's Note:**

> This was kind of a wild fic but thank you for reading it! I tried to remember anything that might be a relevant content tag, but if I missed anything, please feel free to let me know!
> 
> As always, if you enjoyed, kudos/comment and consider bookmarking the series! I really enjoyed writing this one, even if it is quite a bit more serious (and longer) than some of the other ones in this series!


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